Working hard: Colin Farrell traded carousing for workouts, and the results show in 'Fright Night,' out Friday, and 'Total Recall,' which is filming now.

"I actually like the gym. I find peace in it. Which is (expletive) weird," Farrell says, grinning as he Skypes from the Four Seasons in Los Angeles. "I never thought that would be me. I see these quotes, 'Working out for me is lifting a Carlsberg.' It was true at the time. Things have changed."

And how. Since going through rehab in 2005 and ending years of partying, a re-energized Farrell, 35, has streamlined his life. He quit smoking. He works out. His focus now? His sons, James, 7, and Henry, almost 2, and his reinvigorated film career, which includes July hit Horrible Bosses, the big-ticket remake of Fright Night, opening Friday, and a reimagined Total Recall, now shooting in Toronto. And the good-natured, candid Irish actor has figured out how to live his life with a modicum of privacy. After all, if the crushing burden of fame ever gets too overwhelming, he has a simple solution.

"Walk the (expletive) away from it. You don't want to be photographed by the paparazzi? Say no to the $120 million film. Eventually they'll stay away from you. But you won't have the other things the $120 million film brings into your life: the good seats at the sports event, the backstage pass to the concert, the nice reclining chair on the airplane.

"Do I enjoy the paparazzi or like their presence? No. I went through years of getting in their faces. It was such a disaster. It made my life so much more complicated."

Farrell 2.0 keeps things simple and understated. How did the rakishly disheveled actor spend the previous evening in Los Angeles?

Farrell 1.0 would have scoffed.

"You're talking to someone who checks into the Four Seasons, grabs the (expletive) room service menu, and gets so giddy at what is on the menu and looks at the on-demand on TV and gets so giddy that I can have films that are still in theaters," he says. "I get joy out of kind of everything. I went for a drive at 1 a.m. last night in my car. I played the music loud on the 405 freeway, and it was like the first time I ever arrived here. I just get so much joy out of the simple things."

In that, he diverges from Jerry, the vampire he plays in Fright Night. Jerry is scheming. Diabolical. Remorseless. And teeming with disdain for the humans whose blood he gulps to survive.

An 'alpha-male quality'

Playing a construction worker by day/demon by night "was fun, man. It was just tasty. It was fun to be unleashed and allowed to be cruel and malevolent. Jerry is in on the joke," says Farrell. "I was a fan of the original Fright Night, so I was suspicious as to the notion of remaking it. I didn't want to like it. I wanted to slag Hollywood for ruining a film that was an important part of my youth experience in films. But I read it and loved it."

For director Craig Gillespie, Farrell made Jerry enticingly bloodthirsty without bordering on cartoonish.

"Colin has such a strong, sexy alpha-male quality to him, but also a sense of humor. He's a sexy male villain with a sense of humor," says Fright Night director Craig Gillespie. "He's incredibly accessible as an actor, just to watch. He can convey a lot without dialogue."

The horror film opens a month after Farrell's pudgy, balding kung-fu master and ladykiller Bobby Pellitt terrorized Jason Sudeikis in the R-rated comedy hit Horrible Bosses. That's Farrell commanding Sudeikis to trim the fat by firing the more corpulent employees. He's only on-screen for minutes, but he went the comedic distance by burying his tousled, tattooed good looks under a fat suit and bald cap.

"He was a huge fan of looking as far from his usual self as possible. We made that belly for him. He was really excited to play such a purely evil guy," says Bosses director Seth Gordon. "He's amazing in this part and shows a whole new side of what he can do."

The lighter fare was a welcome working vacation for Farrell, after more serious work playing a conflicted, muddled hit man in 2008's In Bruges, which netted him a Golden Globe Award, and an alcoholic fisherman in Neil Jordan's 2009 romantic fable, Ondine.

"I'd just come off of playing men going through difficulty in their lives. So I told my agent I wanted to have some fun and do something that might have more comedy. In a fortnight, both of those scripts came."

Now, Farrell is spending his summer in Toronto, shooting Len Wiseman's remake of Total Recall. The new film, Farrell assures, is vastly different from the 1990 original that starred Arnold Schwarzenegger, and so to is Farrell's version of construction worker/freedom fighter Douglas Quaid. To embody him, Farrell amped up the workouts.

"I got in really good shape before we started filming. I worked out really hard and was watching my diet. It's been a long time since I'd done an action film. I bruise easier. I get a little bit weak, a little more fatigued, as the gig goes on."

To his friends and colleagues, Farrell is just as droll, as off-the-cuff, as he was as a carouser.

"It doesn't matter if he's having a beer or not. He's still fun to hang out with, whether it's at the gym or the dinner table," Gillespie says. "He's still really enjoying himself, but without (the alcohol). Some people may lose the sense of themselves when they stop that, but he shines."

In fact, says Irish playwright Martin McDonagh, who directed Farrell in the well-received In Bruges, the actor isn't quite as raucous as you'd think. "He's really sweet. He's got a little shyness to him that doesn't come across. I never saw much of his wild side. … Everything I know about him is the sensitive workaholic."

And he's one who's relaxed and puts those around him at ease, says Farrell's Fright Night co-star Imogen Poots.

"What surprised me is just how bright a person he is," Poots says. "He's so well-read. Intelligent. His personality is vibrant. He's great fun to be around, but also just super-chill."

Now, family comes first

In the fall, Farrell starts shooting the dialogue-heavy black comedy Seven Psychopaths for McDonagh, the talk of which gets the actor visibly excited. "It's smaller in scope. More immediate. More character-driven," he says.

McDonagh is reuniting with Farrell for a very simple reason: He likes him.

"He's one of the nicest guys I've met in this business. He has depth and honesty, and he's able to play the dark side, yet you still love him," the writer says.

Psychopaths is a passion project for Farrell, who first broke out as an unruly grunt in 2000's Tigerland. His career has been a mixed bag: For a hit like 2002's Minority Report, there's also Oliver Stone's epic 2004 flameout, Alexander. Sometimes Farrell does films strictly for the love. Other times, cash vies with artistic integrity — and that's OK.

"A big paycheck, absolutely. To be able to provide for my family, I'm not going to bitch about it," he says. "At times you feel like you have to apologize for being in big films. You have this notion of selling out. At this stage, I would love to do big films that are seen by a lot of people and do smaller films that probably emotionally mean more to me."

How driven is Farrell, who once dashed from movie to movie?

"I'm pretty clear on why I go to work now. Before Fright Night, I thought the last few years of work had been gratifying, and I loved it. Now I wanted to do something lighter," he says. "I understand and have a respect for being away that I didn't have for the first five, six, seven years. With two boys as well, I have a respect for missing people that are in my life, a respect for being away from my kids."

Farrell's sons, from separate relationships, both live in Los Angeles, as does he. His older son, James, has Angelman syndrome, a neuro-developmental disorder; James began walking before he turned 4 but cannot speak. If it's possible for a human to sparkle, Farrell does so when asked about his firstborn.

"Less and less and less do I see his condition. I'm just keenly aware of his personality. He's really cool," Farrell says. "He's so much fun to be around. I just am crazy about him. His health is good. We have the seizures under control. He's got an amazing team of people in his life."

Being with his boys is a priority for Farrell. "I went for seven years (working) back to back to back to back. That became my life. That's not the way it is now. I have more balance in regards to choosing things."

That's Farrell 2.0 speaking.

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